After spending untold hours "googling" for information on how to self publish a print on demand book, I stumbled upon this forum. I am a believer in learning from the experiences of others. My hope is to publish a print book for my family with some memories of my childhood in Ohio. I am a retired educator who lives in Southern California. I would be interested in reading any posts related to a project such as mine. Black and white with a few grayscape photos. I still have to complete the manuscript, select a publisher and then create a PDF that fits the publisher's specs. Look forward to hearing from anyone!

You'll find that virtually all of the people here use either CreateSpace (CS) or IngramSpark (IS), as do I. I love CS for my paperback books and IS for my hardcover books. You have a lot of research and reading to do whichever one you choose because there are a lot of specifications which you have to understand and follow. I suggest that you spend about the next week doing the aforementioned research (yes, it can and should take you about that long if you do it thoroughly).

Welcome to the forum. You have come to the right place if you want to avoid reams of spam clogging the pages. We try very hard to ensure our forum is cleaned daily.
I am a big fan of CreateSpace for my paperbacks, Lulu for my hard covers, and KDP for my ebooks. I am more than satisfied with the quality of CS's paperbacks and picture quality. If you are not looking to make money from the enterprise then their Cover Creator is more than adequate to create a suitable, quality cover at no expense. Nothing costs you any money until you order a proof, then it is at cost of printing and shipping only. I would set yourself up with the book information and free ISBN on CreateSpace soon if you were looking to use them. Leave it for a year or two and they may no longer be available as they me be absorbed by KDP before then. Good luck,
Joe.

Thank you for the comments. I intend to take my time with the publishing. I only want to do it one time and learn in the process. However, I think the suggestion to register with CS and obtain an ISBN sounds wise. Are there rumors? I am assuming I can change any specifics regarding the title as I go along? It appears that I have to enter my SSN to complete the process. Is this correct? I see that the site is secure but is it safe?

Yes, there are rumours, and elements of CS shutting down, staff being laid off, and KDP introducing paperbacks to their portfolio. All of these events lead the astute to believe that Amazon, owning both entities, will soon combine the two under one roof, so to speak. I believe that we have a year or more before it occurs, due to the KDP paperback program being in its infancy still, slowly gaining the elements we were used to with CS, like author copies and proofs, previously unavailable up to a few months ago.

There are certain aspects of a book's registration in the CS system that cannot be changed, as an ISBN must have exact information attached to it, which can never be changed once approved for publication. Covers and interior are open to change at any time, even after publication, as well as some other title information. You should research it with a practice book if you want to identify exactly what may be changed. As I said, it is free all the way, until a proof is ordered. My practice book ended up gaining such a good review and selling so many that I could not bring myself to retire it, as originally planned!

CS is as safe as a site can be in this modern age. I have never had problems. It is customary to supply any company that provides income with tax information. Amazon is not concerned with distributing that information or deliberately trying to defraud anyone.
Cheers,
Joe.